Monday, April 07, 2014

Do you live near a nuclear power plant?

This Esri map can help you find out how near you live to a nuclear power plant. Enter your address or zip-code into the How close am I to a nuclear power plant? map and you can discover where the nearest nuclear power plants to your home are situated.

The map draws lines from your home to the five nearest power plants and tells you the distance to each. The map includes the 10 and 50 mile evacuation zones surrounding each nuclear plant.

CNN has a similar map created with the Google Maps API. How close is your home to a nuclear power plant? also allows you to enter your address and view the nearest five nuclear power plants. Like the Esri map the CNN map draws a line from your home to your nearest power plants, displays the distance and shows the 10 and 50 mile evacuation zones around each plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that in the event of a major catastrophe the air could be unsafe to breathe in a 50 mile radius around a plant. Food and water supplies may be unsafe within the 10 mile radius.